Research ExpertiseMy research interests fall broadly into the areas of learning and cognition. I am particularly interested in understanding how animals solve ecologically relevant problems they encounter in the wild. In my comparative cognition lab, we use the Indian mynah, a highly invasive and urbanized social songbird, to explore the mechanisms of social learning. Mynahs are also remarkably innovative in the foraging context, so they provide the opportunity to explore relationships between foraging innovation, ecological success and urbanization using both captive and field experimental approaches. We are also comparing the performance of mynahs to a variety of other native and non native Australian bird species. Our findings provide important information into the cognitive and ecological attributes of a highly invasive avian species. As such, they allow us to test theoretical models of animal cognition, but also to inform the development of wildlife management strategies for avian pests. Finally, my work in comparative cognition extends to humans, since together social psychologist, Dr Stefania Paolini (School of Psychology, University of Newcastle), I am exploring the role of individual and social learning in the development of intergroup anxiety. For more details, go to http://andreasgriffin.weebly.com/

Journal article (29 outputs)

It is now well established that individuals can differ consistently in their average levels of behaviour across different contexts. There have recently been calls to apply the sam... [more]

It is now well established that individuals can differ consistently in their average levels of behaviour across different contexts. There have recently been calls to apply the same adaptive framework to interindividual differences in cognition. These calls have culminated in the suggestion that variation in personality and cognition should correlate. We suggest that both these appealing notions are conceptually and logistically problematic. We identify the first crucial step for establishing any cognition-personality relationship. This is to determine the degree to which cognitive abilities yield consistent task performance. We then suggest how to establish whether such consistency exists. Finally, we discuss why formulating predictions about how cognition might be related to personality is much more difficult than is currently realised.

It is now well established that individuals can differ consistently in their average levels of behaviour across different contexts. There have recently been calls to apply the sam... [more]

It is now well established that individuals can differ consistently in their average levels of behaviour across different contexts. There have recently been calls to apply the same adaptive framework to interindividual differences in cognition. These calls have culminated in the suggestion that variation in personality and cognition should correlate. We suggest that both these appealing notions are conceptually and logistically problematic. We identify the first crucial step for establishing any cognition-personality relationship. This is to determine the degree to which cognitive abilities yield consistent task performance. We then suggest how to establish whether such consistency exists. Finally, we discuss why formulating predictions about how cognition might be related to personality is much more difficult than is currently realised.

Macro-ecological comparisons have repeatedly demonstrated that the taxonomic distribution of foraging innovations coincides with the ability to adjust to novel and changing enviro... [more]

Macro-ecological comparisons have repeatedly demonstrated that the taxonomic distribution of foraging innovations coincides with the ability to adjust to novel and changing environments. We sought to obtain experimental support for the link between innovative foraging and opportunism by measuring the innovation abilities of two highly successful passerines on the east coast of Australia with very different success strategies. The ecological success of the introduced Indian myna, Acridotheres tristis, has been linked to its ability to occupy opportunistically an ecological niche that most natives cannot, whereas the native noisy miner, Manorina melanocephala, owes its success to its ability to aggressively outcompete other avian species. Indian mynas were significantly more neophobic than noisy miners. Yet, when tested on a range of innovative foraging tasks, Indian mynas consistently outperformed noisy miners. The ability to use the beak in a greater range of ways, and more flexibly, was highly repeatable in Indian mynas, and underpinned their superior problem-solving performance. We discuss the results in the light of potential methodological influences, but also the idea that necessity may facilitate innovation not only in less competitive individuals, as is documented in the literature, but also in species with less competitive lifestyles.

In comparison with social learning about food, social learning about predators has received little attention. Yet such research is of potential interest to students of animal cogn... [more]

In comparison with social learning about food, social learning about predators has received little attention. Yet such research is of potential interest to students of animal cognition and conservation biologists. I summarize evidence for social learning about predators by fish, birds, eutherian mammals, and marsupials. I consider the proposal that this phenomenon is a case of S-S classical conditioning and suggest that evolution may have modified some of the properties of learning to accommodate for the requirements of learning socially about danger. I discuss some between-species differences in the properties of socially acquired predator avoidance and suggest that learning may be faster and more robust in species in which alarm behavior reliably predicts high predatory threat. Finally, I highlight how studies of socially acquired predator avoidance can inform the design of prerelease antipredator training programs for endangered species.

Behavioural plasticity allows animals to adjust rapidly to local environmental conditions, but at the risk of erroneously changing behaviour in response to irrelevant events. Adap... [more]

Behavioural plasticity allows animals to adjust rapidly to local environmental conditions, but at the risk of erroneously changing behaviour in response to irrelevant events. Adaptive biases or predispositions constrain learning and reduce such potential costs. Preferential learning about complex biologically-meaningful stimuli, such as predators, has been investigated in only a few systems and there have been no experimental tests for the presence of adaptive biases in a marsupial. We have previously shown that tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii) became fearful of a model fox (Vulpes vulpes) after it was repeatedly paired with an aversive event. Tammars generalized their acquired response to a cat (Fells catus), but not to a non-predator (juvenile goat, Capra hircus), suggesting that they might have a bias to associate predators with frightening events. The present study tested this idea directly. We used an experimental design identical to that of earlier predator-training experiments, but substituted a model goat for the fox as the stimulus predicting a capture attempt. A control group had the same total experience of the goat and of a human with a net, but without any predictive relationship between these two events. We detected no change in behaviour towards the goat, or to any of an array of control stimuli, as a consequence of training. This finding contrasts strongly with the effects of the same pairing procedure using a fox model. Taken together, these studies provide the first evidence for an adaptive predisposition to acquire a fear of predators in marsupials. Learning processes in this group are thus evolutionarily convergent with those previously described in eutherian mammals.

Animal reintroductions and translocations are potentially important interventions to save species from extinction, but most are unsuccessful Mortality due to predation is a princi... [more]

Animal reintroductions and translocations are potentially important interventions to save species from extinction, but most are unsuccessful Mortality due to predation is a principal cause of failure. Animals that have been isolated from predators, either throughout their lifetime or over evolutionary time, may no longer express appropriate antipredator behavior. For this reason, conservation biologists are beginning to include antipredator training in pre-release preparation procedures. We describe the evolutionary and ontogenetic circumstances under which antipredator behavior may degenerate or be lost, and we use principles from learning theory to predict which elements can be enhanced or recovered by training. The empirical literature demonstrates that training can improve antipredator skills, but the effectiveness of such interventions is influenced by a number of constraints. We predict that it will be easier to teach animals to cope with predators if they have experienced ontogenetic isolation than if they have undergone evolutionary isolation. Similarly, animals should learn more easily if they have been evolutionarily isolated from some rather than all predators. Training to a novel predator may be more successful if a species has effective responses to similar predators. In contrast, it may be difficult to teach proper avoidance behavior, or to introduce specialized predator-specific responses, if appropriate motor patterns are not already present. We conclude that pre-release training has the potential to enhance the expression of preexisting antipredator behavior. Potential training techniques involve classical conditioning procedures in which animals learn that model predators are predictors of aversive events. However, wildlife managers should be aware that problems, such as the emergence of inappropriate responses, may arise during such training.

We studied the way in which a population of tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii), which have been isolated from mammalian predators since the last ice age, responded to the sight a... [more]

We studied the way in which a population of tammar wallabies (Macropus eugenii), which have been isolated from mammalian predators since the last ice age, responded to the sight and sound of historical and ontogenetically and evolutionarily novel predators. Tammars were shown a range of visual stimuli, including taxidermic mounts of two evolutionarily novel predators, a red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and a cat (Felis catus), and a model of an extinct predator, the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). Controls were a conspecific, the cart on which all mounts were presented, and blank trials in which spontaneous change in behavior was measured. We played back recorded sounds to characterize responses to acoustic cues from predators and to a putative conspecific antipredator signal. Treatments included the howls of dingoes (Canis lupus dingo), an evolutionarily novel predator; calls of a wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax), a historical and current predator; and wallaby foot thumps. Controls were the song of an Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) and a blank trial. After seeing a fox, wallabies thumped their hind feet in alarm, suppressed foraging, and increased looking. The sight of a cat similarly suppressed foraging and increased looking. The sounds of predators did not influence responsiveness, but wallabies foraged less and looked more after thump playbacks. Our results suggest that tammars respond to the sight, but not the sounds, of predators. In contrast, the response to foot thumps demonstrates that this particular sound functions as an antipredator signal. We suggest that responsiveness to visual cues has been preserved under relaxed selection because predator morphology is convergent, but vocalizations are not.